


No Man is an Island

by Smooth_Real_Cha_Cha



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Freeform, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I have a headcannon that the dregs break into the ice court every year, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, backstory reveal, idk Kaz bullies Wylan into becoming his therapist, just for shits and giggles, not completely King of Scars compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29500614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smooth_Real_Cha_Cha/pseuds/Smooth_Real_Cha_Cha
Summary: One year after the events of Crooked Kingdom, Kaz has realized that Inej may soon come back to Ketterdam. And when she gets there, he wants to finally feel like the man she deserves. And maybe he wants to be a bit of a kinder guy. Just maybe.So what else to do besides go to therapy? And who else to be Kaz's makeshift therapist except Wylan Van Eck?But when Inej does come back to town, she needs their help. Hringkalla has come around once again, and with it, their only chance to sneak back into the Ice Court.(this is just a fun continuation AU where the gang learns Kaz's backstory, Inej and Kaz get to slow dance, Nina eats lots of waffles, Wesper gets to keep being adorable, and more fierdans get their asses handed to them by the crows.)
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa, Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	No Man is an Island

**Author's Note:**

> Six of Crows brainrot is real bois and gorls. Every day is one day closer to April 23rd, and my eventual decent into madness. Enjoy!

Kaz didn’t know when the realization finally hit him.

He might’ve been counting up the week’s profits in the Crow Club, he might have been beating up some lackeys in an alleyway, he might’ve even realized it in the middle of his biweekly dinners with Wylan and Jesper. It wasn’t the kind of realization that came at him all at once. It was slower, hitting him in bits and pieces.

He had been staring out his window in his room at the top floor of the Slat when he finally let himself understand the feelings that had been building up inside him, the long-forgotten emotions of an eager child. He remembered the bubble of unspoken words just itching to burst from his lips whenever Jordie had come home from a long day of working the field or searching for work. He remembered how eager he had been to talk to someone.

He wanted that again.

He didn’t want pity, or someone to absolve him of his crimes-- no. He simply wanted someone who would sit. Who would listen. Who would understand him as he never let himself be understood.

Kaz let his eyes wander to the sill of the window. His bare hands stretched out to touch the cold wood, seeking the warmth of where Inej had, for so long, perched. She wasn’t here, hadn’t been for a while. She was out somewhere on the True Sea, hunting slavers as her destiny demanded. 

It had been nearly a year since she had left, and there wasn’t a day when he didn’t think about her. In that time, he had reluctantly come to admit the fact that he loved her, though he would never speak that fact to anyone other than himself. The idea that she might love him back started out as something laughable, but had slowly grown into hope. 

Kaz couldn’t remember the last time he had let himself hope for something that wasn’t vengeance.

But he knew, just as he had known during the wild, mad weeks after their return from the Ice Court job, that the person he was did not deserve her. The armored, buttoned-up boy with his sharp dark lines and his taunts and his failures would not make her happy, would not be enough for her.

She had not fallen in love with Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, menace and murderer, the King of the Barrel. If she had loved him, she had loved him as the boy underneath Kaz’s steely exterior. She had loved the person Kaz had tried oh-so-desperately to cast away from himself, that idiotic, hopeful, lovely boy who believed in magic and kindness. 

Kaz didn’t know if that boy could be made whole again, if he could let himself become someone younger, someone kinder. He could not erase his scars and he did not want to, but he wanted-- he wanted to be the boy that she believed him to be, the boy he might have become if time and luck had been a little easier on him.

For so long he had been an explosion waiting to happen, bottling his emotions and stifling his goodness. It had changed something within him, made him feel.. Not entirely whole. He had no outlet for his violence, no place to channel the rage that still hungered within him.

“So chart a new path.” That tricky, delightfully crooked voice in his head suggested. “When all the doors are closed, blow a hole in the roof. When you have nowhere else to go, it is time to reinvent yourself.”

Kaz wanted to figure out who exactly he was.

He wanted to talk to someone.

“You want me to do what?” Wylan exclaimed, his red-gold curls bobbing in the hazy summer air.

They sat in the back of Wylan’s parlor, the one place in the house furthest from Alys’ music room. Kaz could still hear the faint warbles of song and made a mental note to ask Jesper to soundproof the room, though judging from the squeaks of the tin whistle he heard coming from upstairs, Jesper was having just as much fun as Alys.

Kaz straightened his tie and gave Wylan a look of deepest contempt, but what he really wanted was to throw himself off a bridge.

“Look, I’m about as happy about this as you are, but I need this to be someone I trust, and despite your-- everything. I do trust you.”

Wylan looked almost amused, and Kaz fought the urge to punch something. He hated feeling like he was giving something up, that he was showing weakness. But Wylan was good at reading people-- or at least better at it than Jesper. And he wouldn’t poke his nose where it didn’t belong.

“I’ll do it.” 

Kaz breathed out a sigh. 

“But why me? I know me and Jes are basically your only options, but you guys are much closer. Or even one of the other Dregs. Why choose me as your-- confidant?”

Kaz had known this question was coming, had braced for it. It was time to shred the first piece of his armor. “Jesper is-- too close. If he knows what goes on in my head-- it won’t be a good look for me, or him. I need an impartial party, someone who isn’t blackmailed or paid, someone who won’t use what they know against me. Someone who can keep a secret and who doesn’t have an agenda. Someone who is kind. The only people who fit the bill are you and Nina, and you’re the only one still around.”

Wylan popped a biscuit from the tea service he had set up for the two of them into his mouth. “Makes sense. But Kaz, can I ask a personal question?”

Kaz nodded, trying to will his stomach not to churn. “Think of it as practice.” he willed himself. 

Wylan’s blue eyes studied him. “Why are you doing this?”

This Kaz had not expected. Maybe he should’ve. 

“I’ve found myself wanting to-- open myself.” 

The salt rasp of his voice felt wrong against the hazy fog of summer air, but Kaz willed himself to continue, to push through. “To people. It’s ruthless in the Barrel. Weakness gets you killed. But by what I considered weakness, Jesper was weak. Nina was weak. Matthias was weak. Inej was weak. You were a tiny gerbil who could get crushed underneath a carriage wheel. I could snap your neck right now only using my pinky finger--”

“Ghezin. You really haven’t ever had a decent conversation with someone, have you.” 

“Anyways. What I’m saying is that you weren’t all survivors or monsters. You didn’t look at the world the way I did, where there was no choice other than to be ruthless. You all survived because of your humanity, not despite it. I had to rely on your goodness. And as I started to respect you all for your skills, I started to wonder if maybe--” Kaz looked down at his bare hands. He knew that Wylan had noticed his lack of gloves as he had entered the room, had cataloged it without comment. Kaz took a deep breath.

“If maybe I could choose to be a better person as well.”

Wylan studied him for a moment, and Kaz could feel the tension in the air, thick enough to cut with a knife. Then Wylan smiled softly, in that kind way of his.

“You know, when I told you I couldn’t read, I was the most terrified I had ever been in my whole life. I was shaking, badly. I could barely stammer out the words. And you helped me. You didn’t judge me, and you didn’t mock me. You simply listened. I’m not sure if this means as much to you as it did to me, but I will always be here to listen. I was always going to say yes.”

Kaz remembered that moment, Wylan shaking, stammering every word, eyes trained down on the ground. He had been frightened, and ashamed, but Kaz realized then that he had not thought any worse of Wylan after he revealed his so-called “deficiency”. If anything, it had cemented Wylan’s surprising bravery in Kaz’s eyes. There was a unique kind of hardship in revealing your weaknesses and woes out into the world. 

Was that what Kaz had been afraid of? That he would be seen as weak? As a coward?

“Thank you.” Kaz didn’t think Wylan could know how much it meant to him to hear the words Wylan had spoken. He had always believed that among the Crows, Wylan was the most like him, both running from their weaknesses and afraid of shame. He hoped that this plan, this weak hope that had sprung from his chest like the first tender flowers of spring, could at the very least help him understand who he was, and hopefully, who he wanted to be.

“So when do you want to meet?” Wylan asked. Kaz noticed his eyes glancing around the parlor and Kaz realized he could no longer hear Alys and Jesper. Wylan was right to be perceptive, and Kaz realized that it would probably be best not to meet in the Geldstraut manor after today.

“Six bells. Once a week. First meeting in 2 days in the University district?” He phrased it as a question, but it came out flat, betraying his urgency.

Wylan shrugged. “Works for me.”


End file.
